


turn to rust

by scarsimp



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Hair, Hair cut fic, I have a lot of hc about Xerxes and one of them is hair, I say this bc I'm ndn and hair is important to us too, and he talks about Xerxes too, bc ed and Al and him get together, from death and Xerxes and trisha, hair is important, he cuts his hair to show moving on, it's also parental, yes it's a lil projection shhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27337759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarsimp/pseuds/scarsimp
Summary: His hair was a rope around his neck, most days. A heavy chain made of gold and silver and every other holy metal in the world, in his world— a place dead and gone and rotting away at the core of himself and the stone of a great desert.You cut your hair when you mourned, but how long had he been grieving?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	turn to rust

**Author's Note:**

> Yes yes listen listen okay I'm projecting a little bit listen LISTEN. anyway here in mar land xerxesians aren't white and also hohenheim has curly hair thank you and good night

His hair was a rope around his neck, most days. A heavy chain made of gold and silver and every other holy metal in the world, in his world— a place dead and gone and rotting away at the core of himself and the stone of a great desert. The curls were a weight each their own, looping to drag down his lips and eyes and tears that were lighter than sand. A part of him wanted to chop it off; right at the root, bald like his owner and never grown out again. 

Another part of him screamed at that— or was it better to say parts of him? The souls, named and nameless, bodiless and dead as they were. His mind was a fraying patchwork of shining wire and blood red energy. 

You didn't cut your hair in Xerxes. It was a part of you untradable, something lost that you could never find in scarves or wigs or thickly braided plaits. The one time he had cut it, before this, before now, was at a meek funeral. A sister of his, barely a year older than him. A strange sickness had ravaged her body. It ate away at her fingers and back and legs and by the point they all knew she would pass on she could barely open her eyes to look at him. 

He had chopped it out with a violence, the night of her death. A ripping, tearing sort that growled in his chest and made him want to shriek like one of the birds that chased around the high domes of the temples. Gold spilled around him like a mine and he faintly remembered that he would have to burn the mess; demons lingered around the edges of empty homes. 

When he was growing, growing, still able to remember his parents and still free from the twisting, oil spill blackness of the homunculus, he knew hair as something woven of gold and blessed by their gods. The same vivid color as the molten things they used for jewelry and building, untarnished by grey or silver and forever vivid. Length was revered, curls an expectation in the higher society. He could remember the people who would crow after him as he started working, barely an adult. 

"Such a shame! Such a shame!" Some of the women would cry, their own melting eyes filled with something almost like pity. "A young one, and with such a pretty head. I'd say you were a prince in another life." It made him snort now, some fickle soul inside him agreeing with the memory. Perhaps a prince of the mourning, a death god of some sort. It was all he seemed to bring about him, at least. 

He never cut his hair again. 

Trisha seemed to appreciate that, years and years later; she would spend time carding it back with thin fingers each night, laughter in her voice and love within each gentle touch. She never asked why he would refuse to lose it. Something in her knew without the need to question. Even with the strange glares their neighbors would send if he wandered outside with it loose and down and free. He would never truly understand the Amestrian's obsession with code and order and rigidity. A strange folk, they were. 

Trisha liked it, at least. That was all he cared about when it came to Amestris— Trisha and Pinako and eventually two small, small boys with his own brown skin and brightly varnished eyes and hair. The other faces blended together into masses of white and blue eyes and strangely muted colors. Brown was a strange hair tone, if he was honest. White, gold, they held more life in them— they were important and cared for. These people cut and dyed and pulled and knotted as if it was an accessory and it was as foreign now as it was hundreds of years ago.

It made him ache, almost. A raw thing, not quite a wound but not a scar yet either. He loved Trisha with his life, with every soul inside of him, and yet he wished for something he would never get back anyway. A part of him wondered if that was greedy; if that was where the homunculi had inherited it. A need for something you can never have, a genetic link connecting them all. A strand of human transmutation and immortality and purity and, and, and—

Hohenheim took a breath, rubbed a callused palm across his eyes, and sighed into the cold air. There was snow everywhere and he had never been fond of it. Trisha had adored it, palms pressed to the window pane to watch each flake fall and childlike wonder in her green eyes. He would let her drag him outside, sometimes. It crunched almost like sand and yet never stuck to the cold sweat of his skin or the frosted tears across his eyelashes. Foreign to a foreigner, he supposed. 

Each memory echoed inside of him and he caught himself debating the semantics of a pair of scissors and a mirror again. Mourning took time, after all. Would it grow back without the excess souls inside him? Would he age, live again, somehow shatter the strange spell immortality had granted him if he simply broke the chain around his neck and shoulders. Trisha was just as much a part of him now as she was then— but then he saw a flash of yellow and turned to his sons ambling towards him, air puffing in clouds around their faces. She was a part of them, too. They deserved a say.

A smile tugged at his lips and he felt something lighten inside him when they both returned it; though Edward's was a mix of something affectionate and bitter. "Hello, boys!" He called out into the frigid air, and Al waved back with a widening grin. 

"Hey! We brought stew," he gestured to the pot Ed held firm to his chest.

"Yeah, and you're not allowed to poison it with all of those spices you use, either, old man." His eldest said with a sarcastic grumble, and Hohenheim felt an eyebrow raise. 

"Oh?" He teased gently, "it's not my fault you inherited an Amestrian tongue." The sputtering he received made it worthwhile, and he chuckled even as Al laughed aloud. "Thank you for dinner though, I do appreciate it." 

"Yeah, yeah," Ed shook his head with a bitten off sort of smile. "Can't have you starving to death or anything. You still owe us some stories." Hohenheim snorted, before holding up a hand. 

"That did remind me— what do you think of me cutting my hair?" He asked mindlessly, not expecting the reactions he received. 

"What?"

"What!" 

Hohenheim blinked, watching Al and Ed turn to each other with a false indignation before turning back to him. "I take it that's a no?"

Al stared at him for several seconds before responding. "Why would you want to cut it, anyway? You don't have any grey hairs."

"Nah— I'm still checking on that," Ed murmured even as he scooted closer to squint up at his father's hairline. 

"I resent that, you know." Hohenheim pursed his lips, before waving one of Ed's hands away as it reached towards him. "Honestly, though— do you think it would look that bad?"

"Really short? Definitely." Hohenheim didn't know quite how to feel when Al of all people said that, and frowned fully when Ed quickly nodded. 

"Maybe to your shoulders, or something. Anything higher than that would be..." Hohenheim pursed his lips and his oldest foundered. "Whatever! Why do you want to cut it, anyway? It's been long for as far back as I can remember." 

He blinked once, before pausing. A strange look flitted across Ed's face and he wondered exactly what his own looked like in that moment. With a sigh he shook his head, "Nothing so stressful, boys. Just... A custom from a long time ago." Custom felt too loose a word, makeup covering up the bruise that never faded. "Anyways— I can traumatize you with my hair later. The food will get cold soon." 

Hohenheim attempted to leave it at that, out in the open to dissipate with their warm breath and the cold snow. Of course things never worked out quite so well for him. 

It was later that night, Ed sprawled across the couch as Al poked through the bookshelf. He had found himself mindlessly flipping through a novel of his own, something old and outdated; he tried not to cringe as he skimmed the jagged paragraphs. 

"Hey, dad?" Hohenheim glanced up, looking over to where Al was crouched beside an alarming stack of magazines. "You never explained why you wanted to cut your hair," his son continued, and he didn't know if what he felt was mournful or happy. "Just said that it was an old custom."

"Hey— he's right," Ed kicked his leg across the armrest of his small couch, metal glinting in the warm light of the fireplace they had lit. "I want to know, too. Don't leave us in the dark." 

The full jargon in his hands seemed much more interesting, all of a sudden. He was struck with a thought as he stared down at it for a moment. How do you explain a culture to the cultureless? "It is... Hard to explain, if I'm honest." His mouth moved without his permission and he cursed himself. 

Al's stare was boring into his last soul, unblinking. "Can you try to explain? You're a good teacher." Ed was staring too, the crinkle between his brow too similar to Trisha's to be comforting. 

"I suppose so." He mulled over the thought of it all— people and food and lives never lived. "It was an old Xerxesian ideal, if I'm specific." Hohenheim tried not o to flinch at the sudden imposing silence. "A.. sign of many things, really. Hair was important to us. Is still important, if I count all these years later."

Both of his sons looked like they wanted to interject before he continued. "Hair is a part of you, even if it can't feel pain the same; to disconnect it from your mind and body was considered something heinous in most places. Especially where I was from." 

"Was it religious?" A soft voice asked, and Hohenheim blinked at Al. 

"It could be," Hohenheim glanced out the window. "We had our gods and deities. They're long past known now, though. It was mainly just an ideal. A sort of self-harm, if you may. You were removing part of yourself." He looked away from the scenic view to catch the disturbed expression on Ed's face. "Yes, Ed?"

"Part of yourself? It's just hair—" He managed before Al tossed a magazine at him. "Hey!"

"That was rude!" Al shouted before Hohenheim started to laugh. 

"It's fine, Alphonse. He has a point." Al opened his mouth as if to argue, and Hohenheim held a hand up. "To you two, it must seem like a big deal over hair. You must remember though, Edward, that many places put such importance on things you might find simple." 

He finally decided to close the book still open in his lap, setting it on the round table beside his chair before he continued. "The most common reason we would cut our hair was for mourning." The truth was out, abrupt and loud in the snow-draped silence. Ed's mouth was hanging open. "The only other time I've ever cut my hair... It was after the death of a sister I had. She would have been your aunt. She actually reminds me of you, Alphonse." It was the truth. She was in his gentle expression and the roundness of his brow and nose. A reminder. 

"An aunt," Al looked down suddenly, hunching over. "How old was she?" The question stung, even all these years and years later.

He responded with a weary sigh, "She was about seventeen, I believe."

"... That's my age." Ed's voice was quiet, and Hohenheim could think of nothing but the young girl's ashy face as she wheezed in her sleep. "What happened?" The anger seemed to come out of nowhere. It was a familiar thing, that strange rage at nothing in particular. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, grit his teeth for a moment. "She was ill, Edward;" he managed, "The same way I was. Something about her had been weak from birth. We were a poor family, too. I doubt it helped any."

The room was dripping in silence, thick like jelly and easy to cut with a sharp enough word. "So— you cut your hair then because you were... Grieving. Is that why you want to cut it now?" Hohenheim blinked to where Al was still hunched over, twiddling his thumbs and the bitten down nails of his fingers.

"Of some sort, I suppose. An old grief, but one that doesn't quite leave." 

"Xerxes, and—" 

"Your mother, yes." It was Hohenheim's turn to feel awkwardly aware of himself, trying to fight off the age old urge to huddle in. "She did always love my hair, though. Said it was different from everyone else's."

He could still remember the warmth of her lips against the crown of his head— delicate fingers, so much smaller than his own, carding through the gold mess and braiding it easier than he could ever manage. Laughter in her voice as she teased him for neglecting it. The loss of it hurt like a blow to the chest; a dull throb in the shape of something missing. 

Ed sat up suddenly, an abrupt turn that made both Hohenheim and Al startle. "Well—" he started, before pointing an accusatory finger at his father's face. "It sounds like you need a change. As long as you don't go any shorter than your shoulders." 

"I'll try my best." Was the dryest response he could muster, though he would admit to a certain lightness in his chest at the way both of his boys nodded at that, eyes glinting like the gold he had once worshipped.

He didn't have the chance to cut it until late into the night, once his sons finally decided to make the trek home with many promises to come back and stay safe. The moon hung like an eye above him, watching each move he made through the window he had opened in his room. Silence rang, and Hohenheim tried not to shiver at the hollow feeling that had set upon their small part of the world.

The small pair of scissors he kept to trim his beard gleamed in the moonlight, and it was enough to make him pause and consider himself in the reflection his dresser displayed to him. Gold pooling around his face, jaw, brow; eyes almost too bright to be human. He had gotten a myriad of strange looks across his travels, no one white used to the metallic coloration he carried in his very being. 

The scissors clashed, he wouldn't deny, though it mattered little when he closed the handle and the first chunk fell to scatter across the floor. He'd need to sweep afterwards, likely bathe to get rid of the shorter hair as well. The noise of strands being clipped was rough in his ear, a ragged thing that felt almost like it was clawing at him. A deep sigh and Hohenheim glanced at his reflection again— it framed his jaw like a curtain and he could already see where the curls were tightening.

Another sigh; this one annoyed. "That'll be a joy to deal with," he grumbled to himself. "More reason to drown myself in oil." He rolled his eyes and squinted closer at the man staring back, before deciding the side he had been working on was even enough. The locks he brushed off his shoulder felt soft against his palm, and he swallowed before moving to another section.

It took at least an hour, overall. His hair was long with age and reluctance, and the detail work had never been his finest ability. Eventually, though, just as everything concluded, this did too. His dresser was an absolute mess, and he grimaced at the unsettling, prickling feeling against the back of his neck as he turned to survey the change. At first it seemed like scarcely nothing, the cropped curls looping around his shoulders, but as he stood to reach the broom he found himself glancing at the mirror again, before double taking when he didn't recognize himself.

The man staring back at him was not him.

He found himself moving closer, closer to see something. Hohenheim could scarcely believe it, and with a dawning horror he looked to the ground and saw just how much he had cut off. The weight of it against his back was gone, and he found himself clutching at what was left like he could somehow replace it.

It was something nauseating, and he thought faintly that he would have to bury the mess, eventually, whatever pieces of himself he had gruesomely disconnected with it. Ghosts still lingered, even as far from the desert as he was now. 

He made sure not to look in the mirror again, even as he lingered around the edges and pooled the remnants of himself into a pile. Something easy to carry and easy to kill— something he had already killed. Stepping out into the colder air had never felt like more of a blessing. It was stark against the skin of his face and clean in a way he would never quite remember. Clean and so different from everything else. 

The ground outside was much more malleable than Xerxes' had been, and the brown dirt gave way like water; yellow blending with white roots and soil and grass until it was unrecognizable. Hidden away and safe. He packed dirt back on top, and on top, until his right shoulder throbbed with a fierce sort of agony and the site of his crime was more mound than actual lawn.

The throb in his shoulder was a familiar thing, flashing bright when he shuddered— wind was stronger against his skin now, no sheet of hair to protect him from Amestris' weather. It felt almost fake, something made up to replace what he had lost. What was lost with it. He missed—

Hohenheim cut himself off with a sigh, before dusting his hands off and walking inside. When he laid down he tried not to think of how the bed was too soft, or the world around him too cold. He didn't sleep that night.

It was a little better in the morning, more tolerable than the first night. He still felt the raw edges of his single soul in the brush of gold against his jaw, but it didn't burn quite as bright with the sun to protect him. A warmth in exchange to the bright, red hot wound of loss that haunted each night. It ached and itched but he would live— he always would.

The morning was cold, a sharp decline in temperature that made Hohenheim's bones ache. Ed and Al were just visible, ambling up the hill with little regard to time or whatever could stop them. It was refreshing, seeing them so relaxed. A weight had been lifted, was still lifting, almost gone now. They looked young again, like their age. Ed's hair was down, he belatedly realized as they became more apparent. 

He couldn't stop a smirk when he realized he had cut it the same way Ed did— something his son seemed to realize soon enough as well. He stopped walking, squinted, before shouting something in Hohenheim couldn't quite catch. Though from the violent way he gestured with the box he was holding, it was swearing. 

A laugh broke from his chest, which only seemed to make Ed angrier. Al was laughing too, bright and with his chest, wide across his face and body. Hohenheim tilted his head before deciding to walk down to greet them. It would be good for him; maybe they could go visit the sheep later on, too. 

Hair brushed his nape, and he didn't shiver.


End file.
